Does God Want Our Good Deeds?
By Chris Stevenson
How do you respond to the behaviours you know are wrong in your life? I know that I have been guilty of doing wrong and instead of making up for it, instead of apologising, instead of undoing the wrong – I’ve ignored it, I’ve justified it as being ok because Jesus has already covered all my past, current and future sins.
The problem being, that although this is true, that Jesus has indeed paid the price for all the wrong we will ever do; it doesn’t give us a license to flaunt that as an excuse for bad behaviour. We are called into relationship with God, to follow His commands for us, not to use him as a get out of jail free card. This isn’t a new issue though. The prophet Jeremiah discusses it in Jeremiah 7:3-4
“This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, "This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!"
Jeremiah is talking to those who lived a life however they wanted, did whatever they wanted and thought that it was ok because they ticked off the boxes of attending God’s temple. Yet, God is saying here don’t do that. Don’t come and say this is the house of God then leave and live a life according to your own desires. It continues in verse 5-7:
If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever.
God makes it clear that the act of going to temple, or for us, going to Church, isn’t what He is worried about. Instead, God wants His people, both then and now, to live a life that is obedient and that glorifies God.
It’s easy to get caught up in this thought process that if we attend Church, serve regularly attend a Link group and keep up appearances then we are doing what God wants us to. The truth is though, that even though the routine and structure of Church services are helpful to us to learn about and experience God, if we then don’t take that into our hearts, into our lives they are ultimately meaningless. He isn’t concerned with our meetings, our rituals…He is concerned with us, He desires relationship with us, and He wants us to live a life that is reflective of that relationship.
So, how do we respond to the behaviours we know are wrong in our lives? Do we ignore them and justify them as already covered by what Jesus did? Or do we take the more challenging, yet more rewarding, route that God speaks to Jeremiah about. To not just proclaim that we know God, but to live a life that other people can look to and see the integrity we have in our relationship with Christ, much like the believers in Macedonia as found in 1 Thessalonians 9:10
‘…They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.’
Our relationship with God should permeate through everything we do, not just something we turn to, to feel spiritually ‘safe’.